[pasabagi]

I think I'm pretty good for a layperson at statistics + public health stuff, and a lot of the precautions we ended up taking in the pandemic were news to me: for instance, the effect of masks on protecting others, the relationship of infection surges to mass casualty events, and so on.

I figure a lot of people are just not used to following rules (they're office workers who don't wear PPE at work, etc) so when they had to follow rules, they freak out.

[mdp2021]

> people are just not used to

When the situation is "there is an epidemic of a disease transmitted from human to humans" that people do not go breathing in each other's face is not a matter of «follow[ing] rules» but following good common sense. If people freak out realizing and following good common sense, there is a massive societal problem.

And going to the matter of «freedoms ... curtailed», the instantiation of "treat them like retards" had been to forbid people in deserts to leave the house*. If the administrations arrive to absurd satanic ruling, there is again a massive societal problem.

The problem remains not with freedom per se but with (the absence of) intellectual light.

(*Of course, not in all states worldwide.)

[pasabagi]

Expertise exists. You can ask a hundred non-mathematicians what a circle is, and get a hundred incoherent answers.

Sometimes, you just have to recognize that you don't have the requisite training to respond to a problem, and just follow advice from people who do.